The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(13)

Jonas glanced pointedly about the room. “About the clubs you are visiting.”

Relief rippled through him. “Hardly anything to worry after,” he assured. That was the least of the Denningtons’ trials. In a bid to turn the discussion to topics that did not involve him accounting for his presence here, Robert asked, “How is the lovely Mrs. Jonas?”

His friend drew out the opposite chair and slid into its folds.

“She is well.” In a whirlwind romance, Jonas had met, wooed, and won the uniquely interesting Gemma Reed. Which only recalled the bloody summer party and his father’s machinations. He took another long swallow.

“It is the day, isn’t it?” At the abrupt shift in discourse, Robert stiffened, remaining silent as his friend spoke. “You were never the same after Miss Whitman’s betrayal.” No, he wasn’t.

Before he’d met his wife, Jonas had loved another, a woman who’d instead given her heart to Jonas’s younger brother. As such, he knew better than most the pain of a broken heart. What he did not realize, could never realize, was that Robert didn’t remember Lucy Whitman with any real affection. Rather, her memory served to remind him of all the mistakes he’d made. Of the folly in loving. Nor did Jonas know the details of just whom Robert had discovered his former love with. The other man gave his head a wry shake.

“It does eventually lessen,” his friend murmured, cutting into his thoughts.

Robert blinked several times. Knowing Robert as he did, and what this day harkened back to, Jonas would surely expect him to be mourning his past.

“You think you’ll never find love because, well, frankly you’re certain your heart isn’t capable of withstanding that kind of pain again.” Jonas gave him a look. “What you’ll come to learn is that there is another deserving of you, who will bring you happiness Lucy Whitman never could have.”

“I assure you, my visiting my clubs has nothing to do with Lucy Whitman.” And certainly not any broken heart. “It is my father,” he clarified.

His friend alternated his gaze between the nearly empty bottle and Robert’s face. “I am sorry. Of course. The papers have made . . . mention,” Jonas settled for. “Of your father’s deteriorating condition.”

Robert mustered a wry grin. “He’s not dying.” Though if anything had given him the push to wed, his sire’s impending death had been it.

Jonas cocked his head. “He’s . . . ?”

“Not dying,” Robert supplied. “He lied.” Downing the remainder of his drink, he then set his glass aside. “He did a rather convincing job of it, too.”

Confusion filled the other man’s eyes. “Why would he do something such as that?”

Robert stole a glance around the nearby tables. What his father had shared today was the manner of gossip that would feed the fodders well into the next century. This man before him now was more brother than friend. He dragged his chair closer, and settled his elbows on the table. “My grandfather made risky business ventures, which my father has been unsuccessful in resolving these past years.”

Jonas scratched at his brow. “What—?”

“Our pockets are nearly to let,” he said in hushed tones; and speaking those words aloud for the first time lent an even greater sense of realness that sent panic spiraling.

The other man sank back in his chair. “My God.”

With a wave of his hand, Robert said, “This is the reason my father wished to marry me off. Not because of his impending death.” A rusty chuckle slipped out. “How singularly odd to be both relieved and infuriated at the same time.” The shamefulness in his father’s deception was particularly sharpened when presented with this man, whose own father had died not even two years earlier.

With quick, fluid movements, Jonas proceeded to pour himself a drink.

A companionable silence fell between them, two men who’d been friends since Eton and who’d once shared a bond built on loss, and as Robert drank, Jonas remained steadfast keeping him company as the hours marched on. It was Jonas who broke the impasse.

“Is your father expecting you to marry a certain lady, then?”

“He would rather I marry for . . .” His lips pulled. “Love.” A fortune hunter who found love. He snorted. That was the matter of rubbish better served on the pages of the romantic novels his sister favored. And apparently to Robert’s father, a more realistic possibility than his son managing to somehow reverse their financial circumstances. “Ironic, isn’t it?” he asked, wryly, taking another sip.

His friend furrowed his brow.

“A duke’s son and daughter, and neither of us can manage a single match.” Though, given the oath he’d taken, the matter was largely settled. Just not formally . . . given the rules of mourning.

Jonas frowned. “Well, that isn’t altogether true. You’ve both been . . .” The man seemed to search his thoughts. “Selective,” he opted for.

He snorted and said nothing else. Selective in the sense that Robert had been a rogue who’d lived for his own pleasures, and Bea . . . well, Bea was still a romantic hoping that some worthy sop would come to love her and not her birthright. Robert looped his ankle over his knee. “Regardless, the matter is largely settled.” At least in his father’s eyes. The expectation being when the Duke of Wilkinson’s seventeen-year-old daughter arrived in London, the unspoken arrangement would at last settle the uncertain Somerset line.